444 [AssoiBLY 



Judge Van Wyck. — When plaster of Paris was first put upon our 

 fields, the white clover went out, and the red top clover was planted 

 in its place. Clover is apt to run out in three years — sometimes will 

 continue seven years. Timothy and its kindred grasses sometimes 

 lasts fifteen years on rich lands, managed with great care. Blue grass 

 would be a great acquisition to our farms. 



Chairman. — We now get that seed direct from Kentucky, and~ 

 much of it is now sold to our farmers. 



Judge Van Wyck. — Blue grass is very fattening to cattle in sum- 

 mer, and in winter serves them as fodder lying on the ground in 

 Kentucky, its native locality. 



Chairman. — It is mostly valuable for lawns and pastures. 



Mr. Meigs read from the Journal of Agriculture^ and the transac- 

 tions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland of March 

 1849, the following : 



The plant by Schlelden — " What does man live upon ?" He says 

 that at one of the larger lunatic asylums, he found a patient crouching 

 down by the S'tove, w^atching with close attention a saucepan, the 

 contents of which he was carefully stirring. At the noise of my en- 

 trance, he whispered — "Hush, hush ! don't disturb my little pigs — 

 they will be ready directly. You see here I have black puddings, 

 pig's bones and bristles, in the saucepan — everything that is necessary ; 

 we only want the vital warmth, and the young pig will be ready 

 made again." In answer to the question what does man live upon, 

 our author quotes largely from Liebig, who certainly was the first to 

 point out that bodies of precisely similar chemical composition exist- 

 ed both in the animal and vegetable world, and which are most pro- 

 bably transferred from one to another unaltered.* The whole of the 

 substances used by man for food may be dinded into two groups — 

 first, those containing nitrogen ; second, those without nitrogen. The 

 first are called the materials for nutrition, the second Liebig has very 

 properly named materials for respiration. These are found combin- 



•Rafl^esque said very much the same thing in 1815 at Palermo.— [H. Meigs. 



